Savute and Chobe National Park
Savute and Chobe National Park
The Chobe National Park is located in the Northern part of Botswana and lies along the Chobe River, which borders Botswana and Namibia. The Park is the second largest in Botswana and is known for its superb game viewing all year round, as it has one of the largest populations of game on the African continent.
Chobe National Park is home to the largest concentration of Elephants in Africa – currently estimated to exceed 120,000. The elephants of Chobe are actually migratory, making seasonal movements of up to 200 kilometres in a circuit from the Chobe and Linyanti rivers, where they concentrate in the dry season, to the pans in the south-eastern region of the park, where they gather during the rainy season.
You will also find huge herds of Buffalo, and Zebra with high densities of predators such as Lion, Leopard, Spotted Hyena and Cheetah. The park also hosts more unusual antelope species such as Roan and Sable, Puku, Tsessebe, Eland, Red Lechwe, Waterbuck, and the rare Chobe Bushbuck alongside the familiar Giraffe, Kudu, Warthog, Wildebeest and Impala
Chobe Riverfront Area
The Chobe Riverfront (or Serondela area) forms the northern boundary of the Chobe National Park. Habitats found in the Park range from floodplains, mopane woodland, baobab trees and acacia woodlands, to verdant flood grasslands and thickets bordering the Chobe River,
During the dry season large herds of elephants, buffalo and general wildlife congregate on the fertile floodplains of the Chobe River to drink, bathe and play. There are also frequent sightings of lion, African wild dog, puku, red lechwe, sable, giraffe and roan antelope.
Savute
In contrast to the Okavango Delta, Savute offers a desert-like landscape with large open savannas, dotted with beautiful rocky outcrop, ancient Baobab trees and bushman rock paintings.
The infamous Savute Channel stretches from the Linyanti River, through the rocky hills to seep into the vast floodplain of the Savute Marsh in the Mababe depression. The winding waterways of the Savute Channel have pumped life into the western section of Chobe National Park for many thousands of generations. However, this fickle and unpredictable channel, which has a fascinating history of flooding and drying up, independently of good rainy seasons and flood levels elsewhere, has mystified local inhabitants, geologists and others for many years.
This stunning landscape boasts large concentrations of game: bull elephants, zebra, buffalo and predators including: lion, leopard and cheetah and spotted hyena – which are relatively common. In the dry season, a series of permanent solar pumped water holes attract large numbers of animals, quenching their thirst under the scorching Savute sun.
Savute also offers excellent birding, in particular, birds of prey, large flocks of carmine bee-eaters riding on the back of Kori Bustards, large secretary birds, and many migrant birds in the summer.
